City officials temporarily denied Occupy Madison a new street use permit Wednesday after protesters violated public health and safety conditions and failed to follow the correct processes to renew or amend a permit.

The permit, which expired Wednesday at noon, required Occupy Madison protesters to relocate from their current space at 30 West Mifflin Street, also called 30 on the Square.

A neighboring hotel's staff alleged voiced concerns about having to recently escort hotel employees to and from bus stops late at night due to inappropriate behavior, such as public masturbation, from street protesters.

In addition, officials agreed further occupation should not be allowed to continue without restrooms on site to avoid further public health violations.

"You can't be affecting the safety and health of other people around you," Madison Fire Prevention Officer Jerry McMullen said. "With the public health violations and the complaints I've heard, I don't believe it meets the spirit of the ordinance to a street use permit."

Occupy Madison representative and street use permit holder Paul Streeter said he hopes to use the 30 on the Square space again as soon as possible after Freakfest.

"[The protest] is indeed a work in progress," Streeter said. "We will continue to address issues as they come up."

10 Comments

This is a totally bogus story about Occupy Madison. We never applied for a permit, had no permit to be "denied," have continued since Oct. 7th under the stance that we refute the necessity of a permit. Allegations of inappropriate behavior are entirely unconfirmed since if they did happen, no one from the hotel in question bothered to report the incident to the police, and there's no way Occupy Madison can be expected to police all behavior in a public area outside of it's own space. OWS can email me directly for more specifics if interested. earthtreesandheather@gmail.com

When i saw this story i thought immediately that it was propaganda. I think i saw it yesterday. I see a lot of allegations against Occupy but never any evidence. The only evidence i have seen is obvious propaganda sites.

Some people are gullible though and will believe anything they read or see on tv without any evidence whatsoever to support it.